


(go after what matters)

by ElasticElla



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, brief clace mention, implied infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clary Fairchild looks so much like a young Jocelyn, it's hard not to take it as a personal affront.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(go after what matters)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this prompt](http://ladygawain.livejournal.com/83265.html?thread=939073#t939073) over at the shadowhunters ficathon: _You are my favorite "what if," you are my best "I'll never know"_
> 
> ...maryse is p much everything that's awful about the clave so uh yeah, this isn't the fluffiest

Clary Fairchild looks so much like a young Jocelyn, it's hard not to take it as a personal affront. She draws runes far too well for someone who just learned of them, gets completely immersed in them as her mother did. Worse, the girl is just as rebellious, though doubtless due to blissful ignorance rather than conscientious choice. 

She remembers when Clary was just a tiny idea, a slight secret bump that Maryse drew concealment runes over every morning. Jocelyn had begged her to run away with her, but it was already far too late for such flights of fancy. Maryse had given up on childish desires back when Jocelyn became engaged. 

It was for the best, she knew that. It wasn't a true surprise even, and back then, Maryse had a Lightwood waiting to marry her. All Jocelyn could offer her was a secret life behind their husbands' backs. And later even less, a life on the run with a toddler and newborn, or maybe being stripped of their marks together. 

(It was always tempting, too tempting- and on her wedding night, she lied and told Robert she wanted children right away. She never was good at running with shackles.) 

.

She's old enough to know emotions aren't always a weakness, but they need to be properly harnessed. And the bitter irony when she sees Clary kiss her adopted son twists her stomach ruthlessly and refuses to be bridled. She is a woman, she knows that in her bones. But it's hard not to wonder what might have been if she weren't. At the very least, she wouldn't have been so jealous of Luke and all his opportunities he was too cowardly to take. 

(She would have been dead or turned werewolf, a logical voice answers. But maybe not. Maybe Jocelyn would have never even met Valentine, maybe- and Maryse needs to pull herself out of the easy fantasy. She's not that child any more.)

.

Alec still doesn't realize she knows. She almost wants to pull him aside, explain why he can never be with a man if he wants to be a Lightwood, if he wants to _matter_ in this world. But then he would ask how she knew, and she would say too much about Jocelyn, and he would _hate_ her, hate the hypocrisy. Preserving the family name is far too important to gamble on such an explanation. 

A guilty voice in the back of her mind mutters that she doesn't want her eldest to hate her, but that shouldn't matter, not like the Clave's future. 

.

Every flash of the girl's hair provokes another _what if_ , another _could have been_ , scenes of a happier life. She spars with Hodge more often than usual, pretends it's because she's curious about her children's progress. Pretends it has nothing to do with the rekindled passion burning in her veins that had long been buried. 

And decades later, her mother's voice still echoes in her head, _happiness is for mundanes and fools_.


End file.
